Syria!

minors and children because the parents could afford passage only for them.

With the unbelievable destruction the war has wrought on Syria and its people, one can only wonder at how meaningful victory will be for whichever side triumphs in the end. This guy Assad is clearly something else. He has refused to go the way of recent dictators like Marcos, Mussharraf and Mubarak, move away rather than see their countries plunged in a bloody civil war. He has chosen to hang on to power even at the price of his country being emptied of people, of losing them to the grave or the refugee camps. And even at the price of emerging from the fray a mere puppet of the foreign powers to whom he will have owed his victory.

There may be a bright side to the Brexit and Trump victories. The immigration policies of both the United Kingdom and the United States are highly selective of the people allowed to enter. The Trump administration’s restricting foreign migration may be doing the Philippines and other developing countries a favor by reducing the brain drain that remittances do not quite compensate for. (Besides, much of the remittances attributed to Filipinos in the US is said to be actually coming from workers in the Middle East using American banks. And how much money does a FilipinoAmerican remit to the Philippines if he

There may still be a providential design in the victory of Trump. During that long campaign, Trump did present alternative foreign policies that are not without sense. For instance, he questioned the policy that has been fundamental to several US administrations of appointing the US as global policeman and evangelizer of America’s notion of democracy. The pursuit of regime change in the Middle East he has rightfully called catastrophic. The elimi a Pandora’s Box in their countries that are fragile unions of various tribal, religious, and ethnic groups. Trump has questioned the US siding with the rebels against Assad without knowing who they are or where they are coming from.

There’s a chummy relationship brewing between Trump and Putin. Is it possible that between them the Syrian conundrum can be solved? Could they - tion between Assad and the rebels to of UN-supervised elections in Syria?

Trump has challenged himself to bring an end to a very key conflict in international relations, the Israeli he will have here may depend on how much impartiality he is willing to take to approach it. There is certainly no a sign of this impartiality in his promise to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem. The recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is quite a sensitive issue to Muslims. A replica of the Dome seems to have a revered place in many he for the two-state solution or for the idea of a Greater Israel where Jews and Palestinians will live together?

The foreign policy of Trump at this stage is a big question mark with the wide swathe of attacks he made during the campaign against international treaties, military alliances and trade agreements. Observers have detected in these attacks a trend towards isolationism. But his slogan of making America great again carries no suggestion that the US would give up the hegemonism that has been characteristic of US foreign policy. I don’t think he ever breathed a whisper about leaving the management of international relations to a stronger United Nations.

Let us pray that the Trump administration will resolve these uncertainties and contradictions for peace’s sake.